The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-02-25
three-fourths OF the people of the

1865, who were dependent on their
daily labor for support, or by the
President who refused to sign bill
which would take old soldiers out of
the aims houses. The country should
blush to see one of the least of It's
defenders an inmate of the county
poor house.
O'Hara North Carolina) favored the
bill and criticized the ruling of the
pension office denying aid to colored
women who had lost their sons in the
war. Colored men did not go into the
war as the President ind Gated. for
dollars and cents. When the Fifty
fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts
Regiments, composed exclusively
of colored men, went out and
the paymaster offered to pay
them less than other regiments, because
they were black, they spurned the
money and said: mo, we are in the
cause of liberty, and if you cannot pay
US what you pay other soldiers, We
will fight for our flag and country with
out compensation" (Applause).
Mr.. Bayne (Pennsylvania) favored
the passage of the bill over the veto.
The bill, he said, was being opposed by
the most corrupt and most hypocritical
methods that had ever b en- employed
to defeat or promote legislation.
Mr.. Bragg (Wisconsin) said that the
time had arrived when the pension
question should receive more than
casual consideration. 1t was time for
the members of the House to get out
from the rcseate bubble in which they
lived in Washington, prepared for them
by claim agents, and look after
- 81 nd
the business interests of the country.
They had drifted along, impelled by
a species of SYM athletic influence re-
gardless of reason or judgment, until
| the period was reached which culmi-
mated in the presentation and passage
of one of the most scandalous bills
which has ever been sent to the Presi-
dent for his signature. The people of
the country, without regard to party,
had every reason to be thankful that
this bill had been presented te an
executive who had backbone en6~gh to
meet the situation. In few years all
the soldiers of the country (not the
bummers) would have arrived at an
age when they could come to Congress
and demand as a right-not ask as
charity-that provision be made for
| them. Let not Congress bankrupt the
Treasury before that time arrived by
Welding to the demands of deserters.
coffee coolers and bounty jumpers! If
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Bayne) would read the National Tribune,
published in Washington by men who
receive from $25, 900 to $45, GOO per
month as fees from pensions-5lood-
money taken from soldiers for whom
they pretended love-he would find in
every column some abuse of the Pres
idenl and those who thought differently
from them.as to the propriety of the
measure. Such newspapers as this
which protested to be the friends of the
soldiers were such friends as the vul-
lures were of dead bodies, because they
fed and tattened on them. 1t had been
charged that he was not friend
OF the soldier; to that he re-
piled no man who shad served
with his troops in the field for four
years, who had followed the "starry
flag" in fifty or sixty pitched battles,
would forget them. 1t was for that
class of soldiers that he stood here to-
taUion cast upon them by the passage of
the pauper pension bill. No man who
had enjoyed the exquisite delight of
|
and breaking in the presence of the
enemy, aud heard a hearty cheer, three
times three, go up-a cheer of confidence
and Joy that the leader had come
could ever forget his comrades. Who
that had ever seen those men rushing
into battle-thoughtless of themselves
and their homes-ready to lay downtheir
lives for their country, could ever forget
them-or would be willing that they
should be classed as paupers and placed
on the roll with The coffre-coolers OF
the army. The men who advocated
this bill were not the friends of the
true soldiers. They advocated this bill,
many of them, why? Simply because
the men could vote whom they ex-
pected to buy by this bill
Mr.. Henderson (IowaeFor one,
pronounce that false. applause on
the Republican side and in the gal
leries.)
Mr.. Bragg-I say that that is the
substrstum upon which all this
action is based. If these men
whom they call paupers we're to call
upon them individually for aid they
would say to them: You good-for-
nothing scoundrels, you are as compe.
tent to work as we are" daughter and
applause on the Republican side): This
bill, ne said. would grant pensions to
men who had served from December,
1864, to June, 1865. Who were those
menP They were the Scum of the
earth; they were the scum of the age,
and the dregs; they staid in their
homes until they were bought by men
who speculated in blood; paid from
$1G0 to $500 with the private assurance
that they were physically so defective
that all they had to do was to
go to the hospital and not endanger
their precious carcasses. Gentlemen
talked about the soldiers being in aims
houses. The men who were found
there were the men who had came
from them, and who, when they left
the army, had lapsed into tier old
condition. No true, brave soldier need
ever go to the poor house. The men
who went there were natives there, they
had no selt-respect, no character. they
laid down and opened their mouths for
teat to suck.
Mr.. Steele (Indiana) interjected re-
mark.
Mr.. Bragg said that he knew that the
gentleman who had just interrupted
him. if he dared vote his. conviction,
would vote as he (Mr. Bragg did. He
lslew the gentlemen who had COM
mitted themselves, day after day in